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0 pointsthow-58d4e8b4y ago0 comments

This is already a pattern in HN discussions: legislation is proposed, news outlets vaguely summarize it, the HN crowd interprets the summary in absurdly maximalist way without bothering to read the spirit and letter of the law; outrage ensues. This is coupled with an "I-know-better" condescension towards authorities, reinforced by a weird ideology that code is above law

The legislation, at least the one coming from Brussels, is nearly always reasonable in scope, extent, impacts, penalties, and tends to strike a fair balance between specificity and vagueness as to allow the courts for some wiggle room for interpretation

As an example, with interoperability, the final legislation might stipulate something similar to this:

* once a software service reaches sufficient market size

* the core functionality of the service must be exposed for interoperability

* any breaking changes to core functionality must allow for sufficient period of backwards-compatibility and deprecation warnings. Exceptions for security breaches or other emergencies

So, for Youtube, this would mean logging in, viewing videos and history. It doesn't mean that every single feature of every single web site must be publicly exposed and be backwards-compatible for eternity

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makomk4y ago

The GDPR had consequences that were both wider and wilder than even its most aggressive critics predicted at the time, such as making it illegal for the banking system to continue using their existing EBCDIC-based systems: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28986735 The HN discussion was also full of comments about how the bank should've changed its systems already because it had ample time to come into compliance with the GDPR, never mind that no-one really even anticipatd this as a compliance issue at the time.

sofixa4y ago

That's a wild edge case. And yes, a bank or whoever should be able to note your real name. It's the banks' problem for using obsolete things, not a GDPR problem.

native_samples4y ago

What about the 'discovery' that Google Analytics is illegal under GDPR? Not raised even once right up until the moment the courts decided it.

EU privacy law is so vague that people routinely 'discover' new impacts of the rules only when some judge pulls them out of thin air. The fate of EU tech firms is pretty much well described above: endless agonizing over how these rules might be interpreted, followed by maximally damaging interpretations, because the nature of such law making is that enforcement is arbitrary.

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macinjosh4y ago

Your wild edge case is someone else's life and living. People who love controlling other people (like the government and those who support it) never seem to understand that.

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0 pointsthow-58d4e8b4y ago0 comments

As an example, with interoperability, the final legislation might stipulate something similar to this:

* once a software service reaches sufficient market size

* the core functionality of the service must be exposed for interoperability

* any breaking changes to core functionality must allow for sufficient period of backwards-compatibility and deprecation warnings. Exceptions for security breaches or other emergencies

0 comments

makomk4y ago

sofixa4y ago

That's a wild edge case. And yes, a bank or whoever should be able to note your real name. It's the banks' problem for using obsolete things, not a GDPR problem.

native_samples4y ago

What about the 'discovery' that Google Analytics is illegal under GDPR? Not raised even once right up until the moment the courts decided it.

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macinjosh4y ago

Your wild edge case is someone else's life and living. People who love controlling other people (like the government and those who support it) never seem to understand that.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse